Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz joined Schopp and the Bulldog on Thursday afternoon to talk about COVID-19 in the community

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz has been giving daily briefings to the public on COVID-19 and it's effect in the community.

Poloncarz took time out on Thursday to join Schopp and the Bulldog to continue the discussion on social distancing, flattening the curve, and more.

Here are a few important topics that Poloncarz brought up:

Poloncarz on the status of things in Erie County:

"We are going to get worse before we get better. We have 727 confirmed cases in Erie County, 607 of them are active. We have had 101 recoveries which is positive, but we had seven more deaths since yesterday, so we're up to 19 deaths. We know, because people weren't taking it seriously, that there is COVID-19 in all age groups."

Poloncarz on enforcing businesses to stay closed:

"It's not easy. If it's a bar, restaurant, or place that's been shut down, we can sent our sanitarians out there from the Erie County Department of Health with a sheriff's deputy and write a commission order and shut them down and they could be fined or have their liquor license pulled."

Poloncarz on enforcing individuals to social distance:

"If it's people hanging out in the parks, we can have our sheriff's working in concert with our rangers from the Parks Department and break up big congregations of individuals. Most people have been pretty good about trying to avoid being around people that they haven't been around, but not everyone has. We had to shut down disc golf in our parks because people were not breaking up into smaller groups."

Poloncarz on how long COVID-19 could last:

"We're not going to get through this quicker. I've got models of us flattening the curve, and not flattening the curve. If we don't flatten the curve, we'll get through this quicker in some ways, but there will be thousands and thousands of deaths in the community. If we do flatten the curve, it might take us a little bit longer to get through it, but they'll be less hospitalizations, less people who die."